


Don't Follow the Hot Blonde Off the Train Goddammit Athena

by themadjaguar57



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Don't try this at home kids, F/F, Help, Oh my god why, and i am sorry for the point i am leaving it at, serious lesbian nonsense, this is not finished but i'm posting it because it will force me to finish it, use of alcohol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 01:54:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3750517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themadjaguar57/pseuds/themadjaguar57
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Athena is on the last train home and meets a cute human and then uptown funks her up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Follow the Hot Blonde Off the Train Goddammit Athena

The last train is always a toss-up between wonderful and horrific. On weekdays, it’s nearly always empty, making the end of Tuesday when Athena gets the least loathed train home. But on weekends or Fridays the train is full of drunken morons and creeps, making what should be Athena’s ‘thank god it’s Friday’ moment more of a ‘thank god work is over and I carry a knife’ moment.

Today is a Friday, so Athena has her arms folded and her eyes closed, leaning into the railing at the corner of the bench, her hand tightening around her tiny folding knife. She knew the chances of something bad happening in front of all these people was low, but hypervigilance is a hard thing to let go of. Former military habits don’t fade so fast, even if she’s only a fitness trainer now (the gym hired her because she was small enough to not scare everyone shitless, but loud and angry enough to teach their pseudo-military “basic training” class).

The train stops at one of the largest stations, and most of the drunkards cheer and run off, leaving the car almost empty. Athena hears four or five sets of feet get on, but chooses not to worry since there are now enough spaces for people to avoid sitting next to her. Almost all of them walk away and stop to sit somewhere on the opposite end of the car, but one is coming directly towards her, loud and fast. A tall shadow passes over Athena and drops something next to her feet, seating themselves heavily on the space to her right.

She had expected a man, but opening her eyes slowly she sees a tall blonde woman slouched half off the bench, feet tapping and shoulders shifting in time to her music. She shifts her headband, scratching at her forehead, then shrugs off her stained windbreaker. The side of her long neck is covered in mottled skin (burn scars? Not smooth enough to be acid, and no lines or pockmarks, so not a bite or a weapon), and her wiry arms are covered in similar marks, as well as tattoos. She smells like motor oil and sweat, a combination that ought to be horrific, but reads more familiar to someone who spent years in Humvees and heavy battle gear. Not that Athena was thinking about how this person maybe smelled nice, or how the little pink streak in her hair was cute, or how the scars made the lean muscle underneath stand out. That would be weird. And would also imply that Athena finds Hot Blonde #1 attractive. And also that she was thinking of her as Hot Blonde which she isn’t because then she would really have to slap herself.

“Hello? Helloooo?” Hot Blonde is doing the thing where words come out of her mouth and she has a very nice accent and Athena is very distracted, if the universe could please hold that’d be just dandy.  
But it doesn’t. Hot Blonde is starting to look concerned. Athena should probably say something.

“Uhhhhh-“ Athena stammers, “Uh, h-hi, sorry I was looking at your, um, your uh, your-“

“My tattoos right?” Hot Blonde volunteers sunnily, “I saw your when I walked on and I was super curious! Like, what is it? I can see it’s like a lil’ helmet, and a lil’ thingie under that…” She gestures towards Athena’s right forearm, lightly brushing the surface of her tattoo. Athena is remembering to breathe.

“Ah, yeah, it was a squad thing. We all got the helmet, but my code was Omega.” She explains, starting to fall back into her natural cadences.

“Cool! Mine is dingoes. Dead dingoes I mean, that’s why the x’s. They were sneaking around this old cabin of mine while I was sleeping and ended up knocking over some old gas lamps and there was no rain so WHOOSH! Big fire. After I went out and shot the whole lot!” Hot Blonde gets more and more excited, rambling, but almost panicking in her effort to keep the explanation light “…Oh wait you probably didn’t want to hear about that.”

“No, it’s fine, really.” Athena states, attempting to assuage the other woman. The train door rattles open, a cold breeze gusting in. Hot Blonde turns to the door slowly, then jumps up, a look of panic on her face.

“Shit, this is my stop, got to go, sorry!” She rambles, quickly grabbing her bag and backing out into the night. “I’ll see you again I hope?” She grins, giving an enthusiastic thumbs-up. She tries to shout over the break release on the train, “What’s your name?”

“I’m Athena!” Athena tries to shout, stumbling a little over the hasty exit. As the train starts to release the breaks, she sees Hot Blonde’s jacket crumpled up on the seat, grabs it, and rushes blindly off the train car.

“Wait!” She yells, trying to hold onto the edge of the train door. She can see Hot Blonde up ahead, realizing what she forgot, but she can also hear the conductor yelling at her to choose whether she’s getting on or off. “You forgot your-“ A hand closes around the one that’s holding the jacket, and that’s where everything goes wrong.

What Athena should have done was stood her ground and pulled herself onto the train using the edge of the door, or after losing her grip on the door spinning and catching the door with her foot, or after the train started to move she could have run after and jumped between cars and stood there until her stop, or after the train was gone she could have just kept moving and maybe caught one of the bars on the last car and clung on. Instead, Hot Blonde grabs her hand and Athena is so concerned with the warmth and the feeling of another hand on hers that she lets go of the train, allows herself to get pulled forward, and falls into Hot Blonde’s arms, who instinctively grabs her and stumbles back, clutching Athena to her chest like a teddy bear. Athena should have broken the hold. 

Instead, she is currently being cradled by a very large Australian, who has just realized the closeness of her hold, and is slowly placing her back on the ground.

“I uh, I’m uh, I-“ Athena stutters, “You uh… You left your jacket. And its uh. Cold.”

Hot Blonde’s eyebrow crooks up, changing her expression just enough to go from concerned to amused. 

“Thank you… But that was the last train, you know that right? Do you need a ride or something?”

“Wait, you have a car? Why pay train fare if you’ve got a ride?”

“Well I have parts. Between half a frame, some wheels and an engine I think I could cobble something together!” 

Athena laughs a little sigh. Her grin is infectious, lips thin but somehow curled in the most charming way. Not that Athena was thinking about her new friend in that way, because she’s just a friend. In fact, they’ve had maybe a five minute interaction, so not even a friend.

This is entirely ridiculous.

“Athena?” Athena should really stop blanking around this woman, it’s getting to be a little silly.

“Uh, yes?”

“If you need a place to crash I have a couch, I’m right around the block, you can catch the train home in the morning.”

Athena definitely doesn’t blush, which is fine because it’s dark, and also it definitely did not happen ever.

“I mean, what’s the harm? Why shell out for a taxi or whatever when you can pop in, have a drink, sleep, and get on with it in the morning? I mean, this way you can take a breather right?” Hot Blonde seemed determined to be right.

“I uh-“

“Oh come on, right around the block, we’re moving out ladies!” The blonde grabs Athena’s arm and starts walking off the platform, the dazed woman trailing after in an effort to keep up.

Hot Blonde turns around a bit and beams at her. “I’m Janey Springs, by the way!”

Janey chatters on for the entire five minute walk, somehow turning the dark decrepit alley into a brilliant echoey splash of drama, rambling on about all the times she’s missed a bus or a train or, on one occasion, a careening shopping cart. She’s ridiculously sunny, the radiance of her voice bouncing off the high brick walls and somehow undampened by trash bags and sopping piles of cardboard. Someone who lives in such a dark place shouldn’t be so inherently sunshiney, but there she was, tall and scarred and bandaged, like the world’s loudest lighthouse.

Janey’s apartment is somehow exactly what Athena expected, dingy, cluttered, an odd number of blast marks on the walls, old Chinese food cartons piled up on each other on the kitchen table, and the kitchen table itself seems to be precariously stacked car parts. On the bright side, the electricity works, and the couch seems clean, if well-worn. Rather than smelling dirty, however, the flat somehow smells like a fresh breeze passed through, not necessarily clean, but fresh with a tinge of dirt and fried rice.  
In one rehearsed motion, Janey tosses her bag into the corner nearest the door, and reaches down to pull off her boots while shuffling off her windbreaker and oversized work pants. Athena attempts to follow suit by kneeling down to unlace her sneakers, but inevitably performs an instinctual perimeter sweep. By the time she catches herself and snaps up, Janey is already across the room rifling through the refrigerator.

“Fancy a drink?” calls a voice from inside the tall white box. The door doesn’t seem to stay open by itself, and Janey has wedged herself between the door and the frame, making only her lower half visible, which is currently only covered by very small mesh shorts and mismatched socks. Her legs are surprisingly slim, the left noticeably marred by the same burn scars on the side of her throat. They probably covered the entire side of her torso, traveling over her collarbone and down her abdomen, wrapping around her hip in a shiny smooth mass until it began to taper off and slide down her thigh.  
“Green or brown?” the blonde woman calls as she dislodges herself from inside the fridge, snapping Athena out of her reverie.

“What?”

Janey raises her hands and waggles four bottles over her head.

“A friend of mine brews his own stuff and gives me the trial bottles. As long as I remember to let him know how it goes it’s free.” Janey shrugs and giggles, “Then again, if I don’t remember he knows how it went so it’s free anyway. I think he said green is the weaker one, but I don’t really remember…”

“Uh… I guess green then?” As much as no one wants to seem a lightweight, Athena isn’t sure she wants to take her chances on what is probably bathtub gin. She should probably refuse, but if Janey hasn’t died by now she ought to be fine as long as she takes the lighter dose. Right?

When she pries the cap off the green bottle, she expects to be hit with a noxious wave of fumes, but catches only a whiff of citrus. Maybe this was some sort of fruit juice? That didn’t seem right, ‘brew’ would indicate some sort of alcoholic beverage. Or a witch’s potion. Either way, she takes an experimental sip, trying to detect the familiar burn of booze. She only tastes mild fruity acid with hints of spice, so she takes a longer swig, finishing half the bottle before hearing Janey splutter and choke. The bottle is suddenly snatched from Athena’s hand and put on the table.

“The burn is a bit delayed and uh-“ whatever Janey says next is cut off by Athena coughing and gasping. There’s definitely a burn, something slightly closer to a lethal conflagration than something so tame as a burn. A glass of water nudges her hands, and she chugs the whole thing, leaning against the table and missing most of Janey’s miscellaneous apologies in an effort to stay upright. She feels arms curl around her and lift her too high too fast as they carry her to the couch, laying her down, gravity pulling everything down again. Normally she would have stabbed the offender, but her knife is somewhere in her jacket or bag or something and gravity just went all funny so maybe she shouldn’t stand right now.  
“Holy shit.” That sounds like Athena, it’s all deep and syrupy, but that’s weird did she always sound like that?

“Athena, are you gonna be okay? If I let you sleep will you promise not to die? Oh my god I shouldn’t have given you that drink.” Well that’s not Athena, that’s Hot Blonde Lady, Janey. Her ass is fantastic. And so is her face. And Athena is rubbing her hands on it. Wait she should NOT be doing that, stop that immediately.

“No, I’m good, definitely good.” Athena gets a hold of the buzz, and her hands, letting go of her companion’s face, “I just need a second maybe?”

Janey nods, gets up and fills a pitcher with water from the tap, and grabs one of the cartons from the top of the stack. Athena wants to get up and follow, but just kind of flops her arm a bit. Why is she being so nice? She’s so pretty. Athena is so drunk.

Athena blinks slowly and when her eyes open something warm is hovering in front of her mouth. Whatever it was is amazing, but is also definitely the drunk’s gourmet, aka reheated takeout. What kind of takeout it is doesn’t particularly matter, it’s greasy and salty and beautiful. The warmth in the drunk lady’s belly is making her feel a lot less drunk, which is both disappointing and very embarrassing. Had she been thinking about Janey being cute? Had she said something stupid? Had she just drunk half a beer bottle of homemade liquor in one go?

Either way, she decides she has to at least try and deal with the current situation. There is a very tall, very handsome, very ruffled blonde staring into her eyes as if looking away might mean her death.  
“I’m um, I think I’m okay now. Thank you.” Athena averts her gaze, her nervousness getting the best of her again.

“Oh good, you’re stuttering again!” Janey sighs, smiling widely once again, “I was afraid I had fixed your speech for good.”

“I do not stutter!” Athena snaps, “I’m just. I. Ugh, fuck it.” She throws her arms up as her custodian snickers loudly.

“Don’t let it worry you, I’m sure it’s just the train and new person thingie.” She volunteers, and Athena sighs a little, two parts relief, one part disappointment.

“Or it could be my sexy scar.”

Athena definitely blushes this time, accidentally glancing towards Janey’s thigh in an effort to avoid eye contact. She clings to the food carton, nearly crushing it between her fingers, hoping it will keep some semblance of distance between her and her caretaker.

“Welp, you’re best off sleeping that off, I’ll leave you to it now!” Janey pops up from kneeling by the couch and struts off down the short hall and turns into what was probably the bathroom.

Athena does her best not to flail her arms, slam the carton onto the couch and punch a hole in the wall. That big oaf, that scruffy, grimy, dishabille- No that one was wrong, definitely wrong, do not think of her as the leggy blonde with a hot accent, do not DO that, she is the enemy now!

Athena can’t think of anything else to do, and is pretending to not be drunk, so she gets up and marches herself towards the bathroom door, which of course at that moment decides to open and release a moving pile of blankets and pillows that Athena crashes into and sends her, the better potion of a linen closet, and Hot Enemy Blonde tumbling to the linoleum.

Athena clawed the air for some sort of hold, but finding only a quickly unfolding bedsheet, she closes her eyes and braces for impact. She feels her socked feet slip forward, but a long arm reaches around her head and cradles it before she reaches the floor. Athena barely feels herself hit the ground, most of the collision’s force being absorbed by her protector. By the time everything settles she’s too busy being bemused to lift the sheet from her face. Instead, it’s pulled from her face by a very smug lady.

“Well, darl, we really ought to stop running into each other like this.”

Oh my god she made a pun, slap her Athena, she earned it.

Instead Athena elects to be the bigger person and kisses her.

It’s surprisingly nice, despite their being tangled up in a set of sheets. Janey’s lips are chapped, but she lets go of her smirk to press them into Athena’s full ones, breathing deeply. Athena is shaking, her nerves kicking in, reminding her she is kissing a very pretty lady and should probably be paying attention but wow this feels so warm and so nice. When she finally breaks the kiss she breathes in sharply, needing it too much all of a sudden, gasping like it’s the first time she’s ever taken in air and it tastes like takeout and sweat and fresh sheets and it’s amazing.

Suddenly Janey is pulling her close, hand tangled in her hair, arm curling around her back, legs tangling, and the kiss deepens. Athena thought she was being desperate, but Janey kisses her like she’s been waiting for this for years, lips crashing together roughly and tongue going deep. Athena fights to untangle herself and wrap her arms around Janey’s neck, closing the small gap between their bodies her arms had been filling, all at once feeling the need to be as near to her accomplice as possible.

Janey slides her hands down her partner’s curves, pressing the heels of her palms into hard muscle and hip bones, earning her a shivering gasp from the petite woman, taking the opportunity to grab Athena’s ass and hauling her up to the wall, hoping she catches on and wraps her legs around Janey’s hips. She does, and immediately grabs the bottom of her support’s shirt and tries to yank it off along with her bra, mostly forcing Janey to grind her into the wall to keep them both up, which forces her to swear and spit while Janey does the work herself. Instead, Athena runs her nails down Janey’s toned abdomen, provoking a growl from the taller woman, who accidentally rips off her headband and throws down her shirt to grab Athena by the throat, forcing her jaw up and biting into her pulse point. She gets an unabashed moan, then feels a hand pull her hair as Athena descends to suck on her collarbone. She stifles a groan and takes an unintentional step back, forcing her to hold Athena to her chest to keep them both from falling. Then Athena digs a palm into her scarred breast, and Janey’s knees give out, dropping them both into the pile of bedding again.


End file.
